this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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I went on a blocking spree several weeks ago, and suddenly, most of the conversations on the topic were magically allowed to have nuance. Only had to block 8 or 9 instigators who were apparently the ones derailing every conversation.
I have a block list of about 40 thats taken a year to curate, and yes, Lemmy has been absolutely fantastic since I filled it out. It's like wearing noise canceling headphones.
Right?! I almost gave up 6 months in but getting over my hesitation to just block and move on was a game changer.
My only problem with that, are that those instigators are still here, instigating others. I'd love to see a site feature like 4chan has, where they geolocate IP addresses and put a flag next to your user name. I know it can be bypassed with a VPN, but I'd at least like these little shits to at least have to use one. Rack up the flags on the username too -- If the IP address changes from Russia, to USA, put both flags on the user. Set a super-cookie on browsers that tracks alt-accounts and connects them on the back-end, etc.
I believe in anonymity, but I don't believe in people making up identities and alt accounts, etc in order to 'dogpile' their own conversations in order to make it look like more people agree with them than actually do.
I just found out that my boss does this shit. He's got 3 facebook identities so when he's losing an argument, he jumps on "Richard" or "David" to dogpile the conversation and make it look like more people agree with him on internet arguments.
Wow. That's... unironically very sad.
The people who really suck tend to be really sad the more you learn. Like dude, I’d pity you if others didn’t have to put up with your crap. Now I’m just angry and feel bad
That'd catch some, yeah, but based on what I've read on join-lemmy.org and some of the Github issues, I just don't see the Lemmy devs doing anything remotely close to that.
Not to mention, it's incredibly easy to spin up sock puppet accounts on several instances (like you described your boss doing...omg that's sad lol).
The concern trolls also usually stay within the community rules, so it's often difficult to do anything about them even if you successfully identify one.
See that's what you implement one time paid account creation for.
Minecraft doesn't stop you from making a bunch of alts to grief with, it just makes you pay up so that scaling up VERY quickly starts to hurt more than the trolling is worth.
Also, differentiating profiles and accounts. IE an account can have their personal profile that's linked to their friends and family, but then they can also have a public profile that they send any public statements and communications through, and they can also have a profile that's dedicated to fielding and delivering all their furry R34 commissions.
So people will THINK they're able to go wild and outsmart any blocking rules by switching to an alt profile only to realize that the ACCOUNT is what gets blocked, not the Profile, and that they are gonna have to cough up if they really want to go that nuts just to troll someone. One two punch of sucking the wind right out of their sails before handing them an oar to row if they want to move that ship so damn bad.
The problem with paid account creation is it literally links your real-world identity to your online identity. That's the WHOLE purpose of it for Microsoft, they want to know who you are. Don't even start with crypto either, it's not anonymous.
See that's the thing, if your real world identity becomes linked to the account, then creating ban evasion accounts means literally having to get a new identity. Again, we see more layers of effort that have to be crossed for the intention of being able to harass someone who blocked you.
The point isn't to be perfect, it's to make breaching so annoyingly time and resource consuming that all but state actors who are REALLY determined will bounce off and just go do something else with their time.
Those alt accounts are known as sock puppets.
On reddit, blocking people was pretty useless long-term. It did get the more aggressive assholes to leave you alone, at least, but there are SO MANY awful people on that site that trying to block them all is like trying to stop a tidal wave with your hand.
I’m pretty sure I know who’s on that list.
How do you choose who to block?
Spend enough time in the comments and you'll notice a handful of "usual suspects" sticking out. So I'll usually look at their profiles to see their history. If a pattern emerges, block them.
They're usually ones that immediately jump to extremes, make bad faith comparisons right off the bat, or otherwise Godwin's Law a comment thread between 0 and 1 replies in.
If it's really only that few people I wish the mods/admins were just slightly more ban-happy
Genuine question: Is there a part of you that fears that by blocking dissenting voices, you may be reinforcing your filter bubble?
There's dissent and then there's concern trolling and preventing meaningful discourse. So no. I don't block people who disagree with me. Just those who refuse to let others have meaningful discussion by jumping into every comment thread and derailing the conversation.
How antisemitic of you!
I'm assuming there's an implied
/sthere? lolYes, very much so. Damn you, Poe's Law!
Lol, yeah. Reality has killed satire, so it's hard to assume anymore.